Posted
by
samzenpus
on Wednesday April 26, 2006 @09:38PM
from the walk-it-off dept.

isaacbowman writes "Dr. Charles Bridges, a Pennsylvania Hospital cardiologist, says says regarding new bloodless surgery options - "Among the benefits are reductions in recovery time, hospital stay, cost and complications -- as well as an estimated $20,000 in savings per patient." Advances in medicine have made this possible and Dr. Bridges also says, "There's no downside to it that we can see, and there's certainly no downside that's been documented." Dr. Patricia Ford, director of Pennsylvania Hospital's Center for Bloodless Medicine & Surgery, further states, why blood transfusions are dangerous, saying that they are "like getting a transplant; they can be risky and should be a last resort.""

Hardly... The savings is realized in two ways.1. Less risk so the doctors insurance cost are less (SOME of this savings will be passed on to you)2. Quicker recovery time so your hospital room stay will be shorter. This only means quicker turn around time so they can push for more surgeries.

You know, now that we have more free space in the hospital, I'd really like to talk to you about that rhinoplasty. I know, you came in as a cancer patient, but, since there's more free space, I can offer you a great deal on a new nose.

Odds are good the '20k in savings' is either an average savings (and hence including the ever-expensive organ transplants and other risky surgeries) or else it's a cumulative savings from the following:

Red Cross doesn't have to expend as much effort into attracting donors with gimmicks like t-shirts and other contests when that money could be put into more useful 'core' purposes.

Less transportation issues and cooling needed for fewer amounts of blood to circulate, which also means a lack of emissions, veh

Odds are good the '20k in savings' is either an average savings (and hence including the ever-expensive organ transplants and other risky surgeries) or else it's a cumulative savings from the following:
* Red Cross doesn't have to expend as much effort into attracting donors with gimmicks like t-shirts and other contests when that money could be put into more useful 'core' purposes.

My understanding is that a unit of blood costs $500 Australian dollars - in a system that doesn't p

The Red Cross makes huge profits off its blood monopoly. They also abuse that monopoly by creating artificial shortages - blood freezes well, but they won't allow that to happen. In fact, in the US, the RC doesn't sell even blood to hospitals, it leases it: if blood isn't transfused, the hospitals have to give it back after a certain period. (The EULA on blood is even worse than on software.)

The Red Cross makes huge profits off its blood monopoly. They also abuse that monopoly by creating artificial shortages - blood freezes well, but they won't allow that to happen. In fact, in the US, the RC doesn't sell even blood to hospitals, it leases it: if blood isn't transfused, the hospitals have to give it back after a certain period. (The EULA on blood is even worse than on software.)

As a surgical resident I found most of the article pretty good, but the last line that a blood transfusion was the same as a transplant much have been taken out of context. I have take care of nearly 100 transplant patients during my residnecy and they are by far the most labor intensive petients in the hospital. They are chronically immune suppressed, often on the verge of liver and/or kidne failure, and generally coming in erey year or so with rejection issues.On the other hand I have taken care of hundreds of patients who have had blood transfusions. While not harmless, a blood transfusion has a miniscule risk of infection (from potential pathogens we are not aware of or cannot test for) or reaction. Only two of my patients have had transfusion reactions which requires stopping the transfusion, some medication, and maybe two extra hospital days. These patients did not need long term immune supression or chronic doses of borderline toxic medications as a result of the transfusion.

You are thinking too deeply, their point was simply whenever possible one should avoid inserting things into the body that are foriegn, either other peoples blood or even your own blood that has been stored.

It also avoids potential problems like this [bbc.co.uk]. (synopsis: Red Cross Canada pleads guilty to killing over 3,000 people due to distributing tainted blood; 1000 contracted HIV, 20,000 hep-c). The less foreign substances you put in your body, the better, besides the fact that stored blood isn't nearly as effective as your own natural blood at carrying oxygen.

I agree, but this is mostly due to the fact that the transfused blood cells quickly die off and are discarded by the body, replaced by the host's own blood cells. The implanted organs are supposed to survive for years, and thus are a constant source of irritation to the body's immune system.

I did my internship at Pennsylvania Hospital. The bloodless program is great. I think Pat Ford's quote is a little much, but, on the other hand, blood transfusions are more than just an issue of a little transfusion reaction. There are a number of other antigens on the cells (besides those for "blood type" with which can people react. The trouble is, this can raise the risk of transfusion reactions later on in life, if the need arises for another transfusion. Folks who need transfusions chronically for some reason or another can get to the point where you have to test for all kinds of antigens, then wait 3 days for that one unit of blood to come from Louisiana. In general, you definitely want to limit the number of times that you get transfused, so that when/if you really need the blood, you won't have a problem. All you need is to have some horrible motor vehicle accident, get 10 units of blood, then get a hemolytic reaction on top of your other problems.

BTW: Jehovah's Witnesses vary in terms of their religious beliefs around transfusion. For some, some components of blood can be transfused, but not others, whereas other patients are more stringent.

The official position of the church is that you cannot use any of the major blood fractions (red or white blood cells, plasma or platelets), but the use of certain blood fractions (animal hemoglobin, interferon, interleukin, etc.) is left up to personal conscience.

A handy chart for the various blood related things JWs may or may not use can be found here [adam.com].

I just evaluated a JW for a kidney transplant, and the issue of blood loss/blood transfusion over the course of surgery came up. They themselves were unclear as to what is and isn't acceptable as it related to the specific procedure the patient was being evaluated for (Kidney Transplant). Certainly something they will need to speak with the transplant team and their church's leadership, but the link was helpful for me nonetheless.

Yeah, whilst these are also all valid, much of the time it's more simple - that the patient doesn't understand what's been written. They might see a "scrawl" because they're/expecting/ a legible word, when what is actually written may be:

"2tbdiafuf"

Or:

2T - 2 Tablets

BD - "bi daily", Twice A Day

IAF - Immediately After Food

UF - Until Finished

When you learn this shorthhand, your problems aren't all solved, but you'll understand far more of what's going on.

I know when I worked for a couple of pharmacists (and they had 40 years experience between them, and did several hundred scrips a day) that there were some doctors who had a rep for not being able to scribble properly. They knew my handwriting was no better than chicken scrawls, so a couple of times they'd ask me "can you read this?" Sometimes yes, sometimes no... pretty bad when it might be a "q" or an "a" or an "e" or and "i" or a "d" or even a "t" - there's no way to tell - it sort of has elements of a

"Keyhole surgery" generated some fanfare a few years ago, but the reality is that it is more dangerous than open surgery, requiring greater skill. How the hell do you operate on something you can't see, digging around under flesh?

In many (not all) cases "keyhole" surgery (laparoscopic - in the belly, or Arthroscopic - in a joint), actually allows a BETTER view than the traditional open procedure.Every joint procedure (knee or shoulder 'scope) allows the surgeon a better view than the open method,'cause the camera is so small, it can get into many places, that you normally can't even see. Gallbladder surgery now is overnight or same day, as compared to a one to two week stay for the open method.

And yes, I am a surgeon , and I have done both open and closed shoulder repairs, and the 'scope method is waaaaay better. You can see more anatomy, more pathology, less blood loss, and less tissue damage. Trust me, we all need to sleep at night, and want what's best for the patient.

A large amount of insurance these days is provided in package form. A company buys an insurance plan for all employees through a given insurer. They then insure everyone, without prescreening. The insurance companies do this because it's lucrative, and odds are you get more healthy employees than unhealthy ones.Well, of course, companies put this out to bid. They don't want to pay anymore than they have to since they generally pick up most or all of the cost. So insurance companies will give them as good a

If I owned an insurance company and saw a significant reduction in costs (many $20k savings per year), and my competitors did not change their prices, I would lower my prices to increase my customer base, thereby stealing customers from the competition. This would give me the same profit margin as before, but I would be making much more money overall.

I've noticed cynicism is often used to create the illusion of intelligence...

You'd get a visit from the other insurance companies.Keep in mind they're colluding to raise prices wherever possible. See, many of them invested the money people paid to them in dot com stocks, expecting to quintuple their money overnight, get fantastically wealthy, etc.

When the dot bombs TANKED and people STILL put in requests for you know, like, payment - that's when they started denying claims and taking medications and that off what they'll cover and not cover. Hell, many of them deny payment the first

At least that's what most hospitals charge to the patient for predonated blood..That $20,000 sounds like it's been pulled out of someone's exagerated butt - maybe for a very, very, very bloody heart transplant. Probably >90% of operations don't require a blood transfusion.

I'm an orthopaedic surgeon, and for those of you who don't know, most orthopaedic surgeries tend to resemble Aztec ceremonies. But anyway, my last 20 knee and hip replacements haven't required a transfusion. Most patients who do need a transfusion - i.e. bloody messes scraped off the pavement after being ejected from their car wreck, only need about 2-4 units.

Would it be cool if we found a safe, effective blood substitute? - yes. But today the risks from transfusion are approximately 1 in 350,000 of being exposed (not catching) hepatitus, and 1 in 2,000,000 exposure to the HIV. In other words, don't worry about it, your risk of being hit by lightning is about the same.

The 20k number does not seem that off to me. The 90% that don't need a transfusion don't count. It depends on the product etc but if a unit of blood costs a hospital ~500$ and on average you use 3 - 4 then you start at 1.5-2k but you need to add in all the other costs.EX: If treating HIV cost's 2mill then your adding 1$ per unit of blood as a hidden cost. Even if only 2 people get AIDS from blood per year the cost of treating them must be added into the mix. Let alone the cost of being sued over such an

And here is another way to stretch the blood supply Automated Blood Collection [stanford.edu].
So next time instead of giving whole blood, check out apheresis, and see your donation go to help more people, more often.

If you really want to investigate why bloodless surgery is gaining ground in the medical industry then take a look at this article published by Jehovah's Witnesses. And before you turn up your nose because of the source of the article, you should really give it a read. The JW's have had a major impact on how the medical industry views this topic and many advances have been made because of them.
Here's the article: http://www.watchtower.org/library/hb/index.htm?art icle=article_06.htm [watchtower.org]

Speaking from personal experience, my mother-in-law ruptured her spleen and didn't go to the doctor for 2-4 weeks. (She didn't know when she ruptured it.) She bled internally for this entire time, eventually ending up unconscious in the Emergency Room from blood loss, where they decided it needed to be removed. My in-laws are extremely devout Jehovah's Witnesses, and refused any sort of transfusion. The doctor told my father-in-law "Your wife will die without a transfusion. She's lost too much blood." They opted for blodless surgery anyways.

Keep in mind that I do not personally subscribe to these beliefs, but this is what I, as an outsider, observed: (Anecdotal, yes, but it's all I have to go on.) They called in their best surgeon. The surgery took much longer than a "normal" splenectomy. The surgeon took extra time and went slow. All the internal sutures had to be extra clean to avoid blood loss. Even the external sutures were done with great care. They were so careful with blood loss that she lost less than half a pint of blood through the whole procedure. (Almost all of that half-pint was in the spleen, or so the surgeon said.) My mother-in-law survived the surgery. (although it was pretty dicey for about 24 hours - the hospital told the family to make sure her "affairs were in order.") She recovered in record time. No complications. Even the scar was less visible than a typical surgery scar.

So regardless of religious views, it seems to me that if you request a bloodless surgery, you get better medical care. Rather than trying to chop you up and sew you back together as quickly as possible to free up the operating room for the next job, everyone involved seems to slow down and take things easy. You become that pain in the ass exception that they need to take extra special care of. Rather than run you through the mill, they have to take you off the assembly line, look at your special needs. I still doubt that I personally would opt for a bloodless surgery, but it really gave me pause to think about the whole idea.

"So regardless of religious views, it seems to me that if you request a bloodless surgery, you get better medical care. Rather than trying to chop you up and sew you back together as quickly as possible to free up the operating room for the next job, everyone involved seems to slow down and take things easy. You become that pain in the ass exception that they need to take extra special care of. Rather than run you through the mill, they have to take you off the assembly line, look at your special needs. I s

Your point is well taken. Like I said, that story was purely anecdotal, and if I had to have surgery, I think I would opt for whatever would be more likely to keep me alive. Also, if everyone opted for bloodless surgery, it would become just as routine. The only reason you get special treatment now is because it's "something different."

While the "chop you up and sew you back together" paradigm may seem like it is out of greed on the part of the surgeons, decreasing surgery time does prevent many benefits to the patient as well. Simply having the surgery site open for less time would, in theory, lead to less complications due to blood loss, tissue oxidation and contamination. Surgical anaesthetics are not "good for you" and the less time spent on the table, the lower the risk from complications with these chemicals.

Simply having the surgery site open for less time would, in theory, lead to less complications due to blood loss, tissue oxidation and contamination. Surgical anaesthetics are not "good for you" and the less time spent on the table, the lower the risk from complications with these chemicals.

Agreed, for the most part. However, the quote of "$20,000 cheaper", would, on average indicate that these issues are less indicative than the benefits of taking their time and doing it the 'bloodless' way. Besides savi

They called in their best surgeon. The surgery took much longer than a "normal" splenectomy. The surgeon took extra time and went slow.

So regardless of religious views, it seems to me that if you request a bloodless surgery, you get better medical care.

In other words, the time of a specialist was taken up for a case where his expertise wasn't really required. Someone else didn't receive the benefit of that surgeon, and an operating theatre and all of the support personnel (anaesthesiologist(s), nurses,

I think it's brilliant that they're starting to use suctioned blood to resupply the patient. This is, more or less, perfectly good blood. It may need to be mixed with some anticoagulants, but otherwise it's got to be better than transfused blood. It's fresh and still plenty capable of carrying a full load of oxygen.

I'm planning on applying to med school in the next couple of years with the goal of going into surgery, so seeing an article like this on Slashdot is nice. The advancements in medicine over just the last decade have been incredible and I see no end to it. I'm looking forward to how much more it will advance by the time I'm in residency.

I used to have a job running a Cell Saver for a third party company during surgical procedures. It does provide a great benefit to the patient (as they're getting their own blood products back almost immediately, frequently while still partially oxygenated) WHEN USED PROPERLY. Most of the time it didn't eliminate the need for transfusion (especially in trauma cases, or abdominal aortic aneurysm cases which made up about 50% of our work) but frequently the blood would have to be discarded due to procedural contraindications, ie the surgical team (read as: the surgeon) would not follow the instructions given by the technician (namely, me.) I literally had one doctor suck up stomach contents into the cell saver reservoir and then be irate when I refused to process it. Another time, written instructions on an emergency reservoir setup (to be used in cases where it's needed immediately for an emergency surgical procedure, before the technician can arrive at the hospital) were not followed (in this case, the wall suction was set to "full" which destroys red blood cells and can lead to an increased risk of heart attack and/or stroke among other potentially fatal complications) leading to nearly 3 liters of suctioned material being discarded. The cutter complained to the cheif surgeon, who complained to the head of surgical services, and after a protracted investigation, it was determined that it was the right choice. Nevertheless, the same mistake was made multiple times at the same hospital after that, and despite my having made the right choice in insisting the material be discarded, that surgeon refused to allow me to be in the room while he operated after that. (Yay for surgeon arrogance; even when he's wrong, he's right.)

My point is that the cell saver is not a panacea for transfused blood. We did use it on several Jehovah's Witnesses; apparently there is some thought that if the circuit of blood is not broken (ie the suctioned material is constantly processed and immediately transfused) then there is no breach of their belief system.

Okay, yes, good on Jehovah's Witnesses for reinforcing the desire for these types of procedures, but stop and think that this might not just be a religious issue. Theres a whole 7% of the population out there who, like me, are type O negative. And while we may be wonderful/magical/mythical creatures capable of donating our blood to anyone other human being on the planet (especially handy during time-critical emergencies), we are unfortunately incapable of accepting red blood transfusions from anyone BUT an O- donor.

So this is also good news to some of us who may be concerned with limited supplies of compatible blood in an a system already struggling to meet demand. Hooray.

This isn't especially new. For a number of reasons (most of which I no longer subscribe to) I did not have blood given when I had major open heart surgery in 1979. Of course, I had one of the world's best surgeons in a top pediatric cardiological facility, so the difference may be mainstream vs. high-risk, but there's nothing but the medical field's tradition that would keep the practice from becoming common.What's actually happened though, is that most surgery now is minimally invasive -- except for a few

I thought there were plenty of surgeons doing "bloodless" operations,
from years ago, in response to the need of groups like Jehovah's Wit-
nesses NOT to allow blood transfusions into members of their faith.

This doesn't seem like a "news" article to us...:-/

It would be one of the examples of religious tradition necessitating
innovation in [here, medical] technology.

Yes... personally I thought Van Helsing was a pretty decent movie. If you're into that kind of film (I most certainly am) I think you'll enjoy it. Besides, Kate Beckinsale is most impressive. The final battle is one of the best choreographed CGI fight scenes I've ever seen in the theater.

The patients have the iron content in their blood enhanced in order to better cope with the procedure (same as in a blood donation).

During the surgery, various non-bleedy and less bleedy techniques (such as cauterizing as you cut, and freezing the tissue to stop blood flow) to reduce the amount of blood you lose in the first place.

They recover what DOES get spilled and recycle it so you use your own blood during the procedure instead of having to donate in advance.

The artices does go ahead and admit that the more complex a procedure, the less likely this is possible: so a full-on heart transplant is far less likely to be bloodless than, say, an appendectomy or a stomach reduction (or other similar surgeries that don't require large incisions).

As one of Jehovah's Witnesses who has twice faced a serious blood-loss I can tell you how happy I am to see advances like this. Actually as a Witnesses, we give a lot of credit to courageous doctors who took on difficult cases without having the option of transfusing. The issue is actually surprisingly broad -- involving things like informed consent and various patient rights concerns. In regards to blood being a vector for pathogens, this is certainly well known, but our stand is purely religous based (based on the Biblical mandate expressed in Acts 15:29 and elsewhere). In my own case I was so glad to have avoided a transfusion in Canada during the early 80s, just before the AIDs-tainted blood supply issue became known. Canada was behind other countries, such as the US in implementing AIDS/HIV testing to routine blood screening. Ironically, even though I know live in the US, I had an accident while on vacation in Canada in 2001 which required emergency surgery. I can tell you that while I did fine, many hospitals in Canada simply can not afford some the equipment mentioned in the artical.

While you may welcome the bloodless option, when it comes down to it you are putting your own life or your children's at risk for the largely ignorant proclaimations of primitive tribes people. Sometimes you will not have a bloodless option. Sometimes you may not be conscious to express an option. Put simply, if you choose to shun blood (donated by people to save lives) then that is your own damned fault.

Acts 15:29 read IN CONTEXT refers to the blood of ANIMALS. It was long held Jewish law that the blood of animals was not fit for consumption. As another poster in this threads said, JW's are Hypocrites. If you are going to based your life decisions around a scripture, do your research so you understand what you are beleiving in. Beleiving things because "We say so" and not being allowed to understand and accept on your own smacks more of a cult than a religion.

Clean shaven makes one a hypocrite? More moronic ramblings from an Internet idiot that thinks they know something about the Bible when they don't. Have you even ever OPENED a Bible? So you're saying Muslims ARE Christians? Better not...you might get the beating of your life from one of them who would find that offensive.If you're talking about the "Mosaic Laws" then I suggest you brush up on your Bible reading and see if you can conclude that it was abolished by the sacrifice of Jesus Christ. Otherwise

You don't really believe in the Bible...you just use it to argue with others about it's truthfulness.

You're damned right I don't believe in the bible. As for why and it's truthfulness... It's full of patent absurdities. Is it the word of god or not. Did he put a bunch of contradictions and nonsense in there to "test" us? Either you think it is inerrant in which case you believe everything it says or you don't think it's inerrant in which case, some / all of it can be ignored since you have no idea what i

OH! You need faith to believe in the bible! I'm so glad someone finally explained this to me! All this time I read this book and thought, 'Wow, this is great for the archaeological record, along with other random scripts which tell us about the bizarre beliefs of ancient societies'. But now that you've explained the mystery that all I need is faith, I can start believing this stuff and go get baptised!! Hallelujah!!

Actually archaeologists, like most scientists, make lots of educated guesses, most of which turn out to be wrong, and they grope their way along by getting confirmation and disconfirmation from empirical evidence. There is no doubt that this process involves intuition, belief in oneself, sometimes stubbornness or arrogance. But it involves a lot more. No matter how stubborn a scientist is, his work must meet the criteria of the scientific community, especially empirical adequacy, otherwise it is doomed.A

I don't need an explanation for the bible, because I'm not a historian. If I was interested in an explanation of the bible, I would ask a specialist on ancient civilisations, because as far as I am concerned it is nothing more than a relic of a now-dead civilisation that has been preserved and fetishised by another civilisation.

What I need an explanation for is why I should choose to believe the bible, as opposed to other religious texts. Or for that matter, comic books.

As such, they advocate [watchtower.org] the use of blood transfer alternatives.

There are various groups of Witnesses that advocate changing the doctrine [ajwrb.org], but, however odd it may seem to the rest of us, it's one of core teachings of the church and has survived even when other once-rejected medical technologies (organ transplants, certain immunizations) have now been accepted.

This doctrine has caused the Witnesses to push the medical community to come up with many alternatives to transfusion. These alternatives include Erythropoietin Therapy [nejm.org], Hemopure, a bovine-hemoglobin based blood substitute [anesthesiologyinfo.com] (this was quite a surprise, as previously even animal blood was considered taboo), perfluorocarbon based blood substitutes [watchtower.org] (back when I was young, I knew Witnesses who had been guinea pigs for this stuff), and a host of others [adam.com].
There are also specific surgical guidelines [unipi.it] published in dealing with Witnesses.

All in all, the Witnesses are one of the main driving forces for research into lessening the need for blood transfusions. There are others to be sure (type matching, blood shortages, infectious diseases carried by tainted blood, etc.), but nothing beats having a large pool of otherwise healthy patients who are highly motivated to be test subjects.

Jehovah's Witness have a theological objection to blood transfusions, but unlike Christian Scientists, not to medical treatment in general. In fact, they are quite insistent on high quality healthcare.

I work in one of the US' big children's hospitals in the neonatal ICU. Right now I'm watching a one month old 34 week gestation boy with a transposition of the great arteries slowly die because of these objections along with a bunch of treatment knots. This belief is utter nonsense. And if you don't believe me, come and watch this life of this little guy slowly ebb away as he struggles and struggles. You look into his eyes and tell me giving him blood will damn him.

I completely agree with you, and sympathize with the anger and frustration you must feel. While much of my immediate family are Jehovah's Witnesses, I am not. Because of this fact, they have not spoken to me for 14 years.

I'm not overly fond of many of teachings of the church, but I'm also cognizant that most every religion has its nutty aspects. JWs also tend to be very nice and honest people, and live lives of moderation that tend to reduce their need for medical assistance, all of which are also a requirements of the church. It's a very mixed bag.

Unfortunately, rationally looking at your own religion is not a strength that many possess.

I understand where you're coming from, but rationality and religion are not necessarily diametrically opposed.

The fact that we live in modern civilizations that largely (if imperfectly) manage to support six billion plus people is at least somewhat due to the rational use of religion as a force for unifying diverse people in geographic proximity to each other. The rise of organized religion, the concept of a "people", the beginnings of nations and the ability to organize and rule large populations all cam

I never said the organization is nice. Individual JWs are generally friendly and honest, as it's a requirement of the religion. You aren't going to be very successful at door-to-door proselytization and enticing people to join a fairly restrictive religion if you aren't pretty friendly.

Like many authoritarian religions, fear of being ejected from the organization is a great motivational tool. In fact, the JW organization makes a big deal out of "righteous fear" - fear of making God (and by proxy, his orga

Here in the UK the position is rather different. No judge would rule that a parent's religious views outweigh their child's right to live, and this has been proven in numerous test cases where courts have ruled against Jehova's Witnesses in paediatric cases.

However, if the child was 16 or above, of 'Gillick Compentence' http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gillick_competence [wikipedia.org] to decide for themselves and firmly held their views then they'd be treated as an adult and their decision would be respected.

Actually the idea is that no one is the property of anyone else. If you have a child, you take responsibility for their care. Humanity has recognised that we are all entitled to that care from our parents, as enshrined in the Declaration of the Rights of Children. Similarly in the UK (and in particular in the European Convention on Human Rights) certain basic human rights have been recognised; one of these is the right to life.You do not 'own' another human being, and you are not allowed to take actions

Right now I'm watching a one month old 34 week gestation boy with a transposition of the great arteries slowly die because of these objections along with a bunch of treatment knots.At what point does it either get done without parental consent, or the parents' guardianship get revoked due to neglect?

If the child is too young to consent, the basic human rights of the child must trump anything that the parents say. For example, say there is a 3 year old child that gets into an accident and is in hospital, and will die without surgery, but the parents do not consent to surgery. The child's right to live unquestionably trumps the parents' so-called 'right' to impose their religion on their own child. The doctors are not forcing a religion on the child, the parents are.

In what sense is a child the 'property' of their parents? In what sense can any person be the property of another? If you mean legal property, you are incorrect. There are very few countries left where legal slavery still exists. If you mean some kind of moral property, where do you get this from? Do you pull it out of the sky?And of course, yes, you can murder another person, regardless of whether you have any 'right' to. But what is your point? The fact that you can do it does not mean you have a ri

Where do these 'rights of man' of yours come from? This includes the so called 'property right'. Has it ever been discovered by a scientist? Can you point to it? No, it does not exist; rights are an invention. More specifically, they are a convention; we use them to express our shared agreements to behave in a certain way because it makes us all better off.If everything you create is automatically your property, then the results of that are ridiculous. For example, if you step in some mud, the footpri

I do not accept that one person can 'own' another person, nor do I accept that a relation of ownership that supposedly holds between two people defines the existence or nonexistence of the person 'owned'. Whether a person exists or not is not affected by whether or not they are 'owned', let alone whether the wishes of their 'owner' happen to be satisfied. You are in effect arguing that if the owner of a slave does not want the slave to eat Chinese food, and I feed the slave Chinese food, I have then kille

That all depends on your faith. You see, some people have such faith in their beliefs that they are willing to die for them, by abstaining from any kind of blood.
Many people have a problem with this. But remember, Jehovah's Witnesses are simply messengers. They aren't trying to promote any kind of violence or bloodshed.
And refering to the comment about how JW's harbor child abusers, consider this: Nobody is perfect. There will always be people who make mistakes, who do wrong things, and who choose to do

This is all very inside-baseball, but considering that all but a maximum of 8,524 [watchtower.org] of the 144,000 are supposedly dead, and those are all well into their 80s, I don't think much jumping is going on...:)

For those of you who are curious, Witnesses split themselves into two groups - a ruling class of 144,000 that will die and rule with Christ in heaven, and the rest, who will live forever in perfect bodies on Earth. The generally accepted cutoff date for getting into the ruling class was 1935, although they

Basically the scalpel consists of a handle, an on/off switch aka. an Activation Matrix, a blade arc tip and a stabilizing ring. By directing energy through crystals stored in the handle of the scalpel an arc wave energy field is formed as the blade. This extremely powerful "light" scalpel cauterizes wounds as it cuts. However it must be noted that to use this tool a surgeon must be well endowed in the "force"

There isn't really that much blood in the interperitoneal space (The area of your gut where the organs are.) The majority of the blood there is inside the organs, and if you take care while working on the actual organs, you really don't have to cut through many vessels and can properly suture them. Would make sense to me that they didn't expect to need blood.

I think it's pretty clear from the article that the extra preparation and care required with bloodless surgury would consume more money/time/staff. I would think that a couple of thousand dollars in blood costs would pale in significance to a few hours of a surgeon's preparation.

The article also mentions shorter hospital stays, so that may cancel things out a bit. I'd like to see the overall cost comparison